Changes To Royal Rumble Plans Revealed

WWE

The SmackDown Women’s Championship scene has seemingly been a bit off a mess over the past few months.

With Ronda Rousey defending the title against Raquel Rodriguez on the December 30 episode of the show, before Charlotte Flair returned to the company to defeat her for the title, many plans that WWE had made were seemingly blown up.

Per Fightful Select (subscription required), Rousey’s title defence against Raquel took place almost a month earlier than planned, originally being slated for this weekend’s Royal Rumble event rather than the final SmackDown of 2022.

WWE made the decision to move Rousey and Raquel’s match, and Charlotte Flair’s subsequent return and championship win, to the show in order to add more to a show that was considered to be ‘must see’.

This finish caused a lot of WWE’s other plans to be change, with Charlotte Flair, at the time, being listed on a list of ‘suggested matches’ to face off with Bianca Belair for the Raw Women’s Championship, with Rhea Ripley being slated to face off with Ronda Rousey for the SmackDown Women’s Championship back when Ronda was still the champion.

The report notes that those familiar with the situation have said that Ronda was presented with several creative options, but none of them worked out, which led to the decision was to move the title match with Raquel forward, and put the title on Charlotte.

Charlotte Flair is currently not set to defend her SmackDown Women’s Championship at the Royal Rumble, with it also seeming unlikely that Rousey will be a part of the show.

Charlotte is currently in the middle of a feud with Sonya Deville, while Bianca is feuding with Alexa Bliss.

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• Ronda Rousey
• Charlotte Flair
• Royal Rumble
• wwe

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